Open Banking Limited's June 2026 Payments Fraud Monitor gives enterprise payment leaders a useful market benchmark. It also defines the limits of that benchmark.
The report covers data from March 2024 to March 2026. Its quantitative analysis draws on six account provider groups and eleven brands representing more than 60% of open banking payment volumes. OBL considers the sample useful and representative, while confirming that it covers part of the market.¹
The decision for a head of payments, product or risk is how much weight to give those findings when approving a Pay by Bank proposition, selecting a provider or expanding a service. The answer comes from reading payment volume, payment value, fraud type and journey mix together, then comparing the market findings with evidence from the proposed service.
Read payment volume and payment value together
The full-year 2025 comparison presents a favourable result by payment volume. OBL recorded fraud in 0.017% of open banking payments, around one in 6,000. The wider payments industry comparator was 0.043%, around one in 2,500.¹
The value measure moves in the other direction. Fraud represented 0.035% of open banking payment value and 0.026% of the wider industry comparator. The average fraudulent transaction was £785 for open banking and £266 for the industry benchmark.¹
OBL says use-case mix may partly explain the difference. Open banking is used relatively more often for higher-value account transfers and investment-related payments, while the wider comparator includes more lower-value card transactions.¹
An enterprise business case should therefore carry both measures. Payment-volume incidence shows how often a fraud event appears in the sample. Value incidence and average loss show the potential financial exposure. Customer harm, reimbursement cost, support work and reputational impact depend on the value and circumstances of each case as well as the event count.
The published figures provide a market reference point. A provider or proposition decision needs the equivalent measures for its customer group, use case, banks and journey design.
APP fraud shapes the operating exposure
The Q1 2026 data shows a fraud rate of 0.024% by open banking payment volume, around one in 4,200 payments. This followed a low point in Q1 2025 and returned the rate to earlier levels in OBL's series. APP fraud accounted for more than two-thirds of reported cases.¹
APP fraud occurs when a customer is deceived into authorising a payment to a fraudster. OBL's provider feedback identifies social engineering as the main driver, with investment scams, impersonation, phishing, smishing, pay-by-link and fake refund journeys appearing in recent cases. The report classifies this feedback as anecdotal context, so it supports risk discovery without providing a measured prevalence for each scam type.¹
This distinction affects the control question. Strong authentication can establish that the customer authorised a payment. It cannot establish that the customer's belief about the recipient or purpose was accurate. The enterprise approval therefore needs evidence about the complete journey, including merchant identity, transaction context, warnings, support signals and the data available to the firms assessing risk.
OBL reports that a live pilot of Transaction Risk Indicators found potential to identify fraudulent payments and reduce false positives. These fields can communicate information such as transaction purpose, the PISP's relationship with the merchant and whether a merchant contract exists. The report presents TRIs as an emerging data-sharing control, with broader use still developing.¹
Journey mix changes the benchmark
The aggregate rate combines services with different customers and payment patterns. OBL's Q1 2026 sample records:
- a 0.024% fraud rate by volume for consumer payments and 0.003% for business payments;
- a 0.026% rate for single immediate payments and 0.007% for variable recurring payments; and
- a higher rate for browser-authenticated journeys than app-authenticated journeys.¹
These are observed associations within the report. Business payment volumes were comparatively low, and OBL says they had limited influence on the aggregate rate. Fraud in app-authenticated journeys was also growing faster during the period.¹
The useful conclusion is that product mix changes the risk profile. An ecommerce checkout, account transfer, savings journey and recurring payment service should each have its own evidence base. Channel, customer type, payment type, bank and provider route all belong in the analysis.
Provider-level variation matters too. OBL's qualitative work found TPPs with fraud rates above and below the average. A TPP could also show an elevated rate with one account provider and remain closer to the norm with others. OBL found no clear pattern linking those differences to provider size or known product type and says further analysis is required.¹
That makes supplier-specific evidence essential. Asima's provider RFP scorecard explains how to request dated, segmented measures and carry them into the contract. The market benchmark can calibrate a question. The supplier response and buyer's own tests provide the decision evidence.
Reimbursement scope belongs in the approval record
The fraud rate and the reimbursement position answer different questions. The PSR's mandatory APP fraud protections have applied to in-scope UK transfers over Faster Payments and CHAPS since 7 October 2024. They cover individuals, microenterprises and charities within the policy's conditions. The maximum is £85,000 per claim.² ³
The exact position depends on the customer, payment route and PSP roles. Card payments, civil disputes and unauthorised payments have separate protection arrangements. A large corporate payer may sit outside the customer scope of the APP reimbursement policy.²
For an enterprise proposition, the approval record should identify the sending PSP, receiving PSP, PISP, merchant or platform, and customer support owner. It should state which party assesses an APP claim, which evidence each party can supply and how a customer reaches the correct route. Contract and operational responsibilities should reflect that role map.
The production acceptance strategy provides a way to test customer messages, internal states and downstream actions together. The operational resilience playbook adds ownership, incident and recovery evidence for the live service.
Set the enterprise evidence threshold
A market benchmark supports a bounded approval. It gives the decision owner a comparison point and a set of risk dimensions. The enterprise still needs current evidence for the service it will operate.
The approval pack should cover:
- fraud incidence by payment volume and value;
- average and distribution of loss values;
- APP and unauthorised fraud as separate categories;
- customer, payment type, authentication channel, provider and bank segments;
- prevented, challenged, abandoned and completed journeys;
- false positives and their effect on genuine customers;
- reimbursement scope, claim outcomes, support contacts and resolution time; and
- measurement coverage, exclusions, observation period and data owner.
Early propositions may have limited production history. In that case, the decision can use a smaller approved cohort, explicit risk limits and a named expansion gate. Supplier evidence, controlled production results and incident data should replace assumptions as the service grows.
Use the benchmark within its boundary
The OBL monitor gives enterprise payment teams credible evidence that open banking fraud was less frequent by payment volume than the wider industry comparator in 2025. The same report records higher fraud by value, a higher average fraudulent transaction value and a Q1 2026 increase from the previous year's low point.
Those findings support a measured proposition decision. The market data defines the questions and supplies a reference range. Approval should rest on dated evidence for the customer group, journey, provider, banks and operating model in scope.
That approach keeps the decision current as the market grows. It also gives product, risk, operations and procurement one shared view of the exposure they are approving and the evidence that will trigger expansion, remediation or review.
Footnotes
- Open Banking Limited, June 2026. Open Banking Payments Fraud Monitor
- Payment Systems Regulator. APP fraud reimbursement protections
- Payment Systems Regulator, October 2024. PS24/7 Faster Payments APP scams reimbursement requirement